Former highways inspector loses unfair dismissal case against Hartlepool Borough Council

John Carroll challenged Hartlepool Borough Council’s decision to dismiss him after an investigation concluded that he could not account for his activities for 25 hours over a sample three-week period in 2018.

An employment tribunal, however, has now backed the actions of the council, which was the respondent in the case, in its newly-published judgement.

Referring to Mr Carroll, who was the claimant in the case, Judge Sharon Langridge wrote: “Overall the tribunal found the claimant’s evidence unconvincing.”

The tribunal, held this January, was told Mr Carroll was “a highly experienced inspector” who largely worked independently in completing routine and ad hoc highways inspections across town.

Concerns were first raised internally in 2017 over a six-week backlog of inspections as well as gaps in electronic charts tracking his movements.

He was eventually suspended the following year, dismissed in 2019, and took his case to a tribunal after an appeal against his dismissal was rejected.

Tony Hanson, the council’s assistant director for environment and neighbourhoods, told the Middlesbrough tribunal that he did not feel a lack of previous disciplinary sanctions against Mr Carroll was relevant to the dismissal decision.

Mr Carroll, who had worked for the council since 1999, said his volume of work had increased when the number of inspectors was reduced and that he could not fully explain his activities due to the lapse of time.

He insisted those activities were “blending into one” and that he was not told to keep records.

He told the January tribunal: “It sounds a lot worse when you say 25 hours but that’s an hour-and-a-half a day which could easily be used on phone calls and talking to people.

“A lot of my time was spent stopping, going in and out of different areas finding what the problem was.”

Yet the tribunal’s judgement now notes: “Making allowances for the fact that the claimant might not be expected to account for every minute of his days, and even shortly after the events might not have a complete recall of his activities, the

tribunal was nevertheless struck by the fact that he provided not a single example of any activity reflecting the time unaccounted for.”

The judgement later concludes: “Overall the tribunal is satisfied that the respondent has provided evidence showing that the claimant was guilty of conduct amounting to a breach of the trust placed in him, both by reference to the substantial unexplained time during the working day and the inaccurate completion of time sheets suggesting incorrectly that work was being done at the end of the day in the depot.

“The facts of the case support this conclusion on the balance of probabilities.

"As a matter of law, such conduct does amount to a breach of trust and a repudiatory breach of the contract.

"Accordingly the respondent was entitled to terminate the claimant's contract without notice and the wrongful dismissal claim fails.”

Mr Carroll, when asked about the verdict, thanked former colleagues for their “relentless support” and insisted: “I have done nothing wrong. I was only doing the job I had always done.”

The council declined to comment.

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